Time at issue for Race to Top states

Almost all of the 12 states splitting about $5 billion in federal economic stimulus money to re-imagine education policy have one thing in common: They need more time to get the job done.

Plans to adopt new math and reading standards, rework how teachers and principals are rated, turn around the lowest-performing schools, expand support for charter schools and access to STEM resources are coming along because of the Obama administration’s signature Race to the Top competitive grant program.

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But states are struggling with various aspects of its requirements: Eleven of the 12 have asked for a fifth year to carry out their promises.

The Education Department posted a dozen reports Wednesday detailing the third year of work for states that won hundreds of millions of dollars during the first and second rounds of the competition. Lawsuits in Florida are threatening parts of the state’s teacher evaluation system. New York has to get past some project delays and has yet to spend a good chunk of its grant. Georgia has to come up with a federally approved merit pay system for teachers or could lose $10 million of its grant.

“There’s no state that’s doing this work perfectly,” Education Arne Duncan said during a call with reporters. He added that it’s too soon to draw conclusions about the program. “Every state is working hard … but again this is extraordinarily difficult work.”

The Education Department does say broadly that states show “encouraging signs of progress with improved scores on national benchmarks and access to more rigorous course work and resources like AP classes.” States are also developing tools and resources for school districts and educators, officials said.

Race to the Top gave 24 states and D.C. $5 billion in competitive grants in three phases since 2010 as part of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Some House Republicans have criticized the program, labeling it federal overreach: It fueled widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards. Most Democrats have stood by the Race to the Top, though it isn’t a high a priority. Senate Democrats have repeatedly ignored the Obama administration’s request for a Race to the Top program for college affordability, and the omnibus budget bill passed earlier this year included only $250 million for an early childhood education version of the program.

The work tripping up states varies: The Education Department is withholding $9.9 million of Georgia’s grant because it doesn’t have an appropriate merit pay system tied to teacher evaluations. Massachusetts, Ohio and New York have experienced delays in a number of areas and those states have to double down on efforts to meet promised timelines, said Ann Whalen, the Education Department’s director of implementation and support who oversees Race to the Top. Florida, D.C. and Maryland also have improvements to make.

States really seem to be struggling with instituting new data systems and new teacher evaluation plans, said Andy Smarick, partner at Bellwether Education. Meeting timelines has also been a bear, said Anne Hyslop, policy analyst at the New America Foundation.

“They’re making progress and they’re doing good work, but it also sounds like a lot of things haven’t gone as planned and there’s been a lot of delays,” she said.

Massachusetts wants more time. Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester said an extra year is needed to fully implement its teacher evaluation system, pushing the finish line from 2014-15 to 2015-16.

“Quite frankly, it’s been a more challenging lift than we anticipated,” he said. “We want to do it thoughtfully and not just push through a new set of teacher evaluation protocols that are superficial and don’t really make a difference.”

The state also wants to rework its testing plans. Massachusetts plans to pilot new Common Core exams developed by the testing group PARCC this year. Next year, it will give districts a choice of PARCC exams or the current Massachusetts test. By 2015-16, all students will shift to the PARCC exams.

“We’re taking two years because we think that’s the approach that will allow our educators to get to know the new assessment, the new expectations, and it will give us the data to evaluate the new assessment in relation to our legacy test and to make sure that we have in fact a better next generation assessment,” Chester said.

Massachusetts doesn’t have formal approval to slow down on new teacher evaluations and PARCC exams, he said.